To be fair, destructive scanning isn’t like they destroy it for no reason - to scan a book quickly you need to remove all of the leaves from the binding (this operation is usually irreversible) and feed them into an automatic document feeder scanner. If you need high quality scans of a physical book it’s really the only way to go.
Comment on [deleted]
aurelar@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
The fact that they destroyed the books is the most reprehensible thing to me. They could have resold or donated those books to libraries. Instead, they chose the ugliest and most wasteful thing they could possibly do. Despicable.
bearboiblake@pawb.social 1 day ago
Kissaki@feddit.org 2 days ago
It was physical books?
aurelar@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Well you don’t “scan” a book that’s already digital.
KeenFlame@feddit.nu 2 days ago
Oh. I do that every day
Alberat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
destroying books seems like a pretty tame problem to me when other companies are doing things like starting wars, getting people addicted to drugs, or destroying our democracy.
brognak@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
99.99999% of the time libraries don’t want donated books. Honestly don’t know if they ever want them (outside of genuinely rare/interesting ones, and even then). Their collections are usually meticulously curated and are basically the children of whomever is currently responsible for them. Libraries throw away books at a prodigious rate as they wear, or their circulation numbers drop, or because they just run out of space.
Honestly I have no real issue with people destroying (most) books. It’s 2026 we have access to printers and presses, we can literally make more books on demand, and again for the V A S T majority of books that’s more than good enough (again, not counting anything rare/valuable/interesting but also at that point they kinda cease to become just “books”)
What I have a massive issue with is them hoarding this information, and/or very, VERY, likely breaking any licensing the book may be under. And on top of that seemingly doing a fucking horrible job at actually creating something worthwhile from this massive waste of man-hours and resources.